Kaye Bohler at Alex's

Friday

Aug 23, 2013 at 2:00 AMSep 2, 2013 at 12:16 PM

San Francisco Bay Area singer and songwriter Kaye Bohler — or as some people call her, "the white Tina Turner" — performs at 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at Alex's Plaza Restaurant, 35 N. Main St. Ashland.

San Francisco Bay Area singer and songwriter Kaye Bohler — or as some people call her, "the white Tina Turner" — performs at 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at Alex's Plaza Restaurant, 35 N. Main St. Ashland.

The sassy, curly-haired diva is set to release her sixth album, "Handle the Curves," this fall.

Bohler says Grammy Award-winning, Los Angeles-based producer Pete Anderson brought focus to the album, which features 10 tracks of her original soul, blues and R&B, including the titletrack, a slow, double-entendre blues song that has the feel of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You."

"The major influences in my singing and songwriting are definitely Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Tina Turner, Etta James and Marvine Gaye," she says. "I like a live sound that is acoustically reverent to that era of music."

Bohler's most recent album, "Like a Flower," features bluesmen Robben Ford and Tommy Castro, and was named one of the best CDs of 2011 in Downbeat Magazine.

Her shows are full of her campy, sarcastic humor and athletic energy. In fact, audience members have complained that she dances so much they can't get a decent picture of her.

"To be a really good entertainer and do the blues authentically, you have to dig deep, no pretense, like the (Jimi) Hendrix quote, 'Blues is easy to play and hard to feel.' " she says.